Having grown up in a Jewish environment, I tend to have a poor sense of when a ritual is more or less a "standard" religious practice, versus when there's a ritual that's really completely unique to Judaism. What's your favorite example of a completely unique Jewish ritual?
for me it's 99% of media depictions of religious rituals
Every once in a while, I see a post asking about "Jewish Buddhism" or "Jewish witches," asking about their practices, philosophy, and more.
I believe these questions tend to be based on something of a false premise. Judaism has large denominations that do seek to define their own religious and ideological borders, to some extent. You can't identify as an Orthodox Jew and reject the concept of the bindingness of Halacha. You can't (nowadays) really identify as Reform and also believe that the only way for all Jews to connect to God is to follow a universal binding set of gender roles. Even Humanist judaism draws their own borders to exclude those who profess their belief in "our friend, oily Josh."
As far as I can tell, there is no corresponding borders for Jewish Buddhism or Jewish witches. It is an intensely individualistic practice that does not stem from some widely recognized tradition.
And while I'm not about to criticize and gatekeep other Jew's ability to profess their Jewish identity, in truth, if I was asked "What makes these movements Jewish?" I would be forced to say, "I don't know."
If someone comes here and asks about either label, really the answer is "I don't know," because only another person who identifies as such can answer about what they believe.
In the Orthodox world, a popular genre of stories is "religious sacrifice" - where some religious tenant conflicts with a material desire. I realized I've never heard of these stories taking place in non-Orthodox settings.
As a non-Orthodox Jew, what stories have you heard, or perhaps encountered yourself?
I think we've all had our own journeys of doing something, then learning "oh there's actually a Judaism-specific tradition about the way to do this". Not that the tradition itself is so surprising, but that it's an area of life that you just wouldn't expect.
What's your own Jewish tradition surprise?
Like, at what point would you be offended or confused that someone not of your faith doesn't know something about your religion?
share your story, whether it be about food that's an affront to kovad habrios, chillul hashem, speak up
I was personally raised to treat every non-Jews as basically completely ignorant of anything relating to Judaism. For example, I would never expect any non-Jew to know anything about kosher, or shabbos, or other holidays.
Is that how other people assume, as well?